4.3 The importance of clear communication

While communication has been made easier with the advent of digital media, this format does bring its own problems. Some visual cues, such as gestures and facial expressions, get lost in digital communication. For example, there are visual cues that you could pick up if you were in the same room, but that get lost in a video call. This can lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Effective communication patterns are the biggest indicator of performance, so anything that gets in the way of you communicating your meaning clearly needs to be attended to.

In email communication, it is much easier for the meaning of your words to get lost or misunderstood as the reader of the email has no context to judge the way you are saying this. Are you meaning to be jokey or serious, for example? If the person was in front of you and speaking to you, then you would be able to judge the meaning from body language and tone of voice.

Albert Mehrabian’s work from the 1960s and early 1970s, which is still considered as valid today, showed that when we are talking about feelings and attitudes, as much as 35–40% of our message is communicated by the tone of our voice and as little as 7% by the actual words (BusinessBalls, no date) (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Mehrabian’s communication pie chart

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A pie chart. 55% of the pie chart represents non-verbal communication, 38% represents tone and 7% represents words.

Figure 5 Mehrabian’s communication pie chart

Without non-verbal and tonal clues to give you a sense of the way you meant the words to be heard, it is easy for misinterpretation to slip in.

For virtual work, it is clear that written communication skills in particular need to be well honed and that the virtual worker needs to be an expert in communicating their message without the usual aids we rely on in face-to-face communication.

While these criteria for strong communication are equally relevant whether communicating face to face, in writing or remotely, there are some other tips that a virtual team might benefit from applying.

We Work Remotely (no date) suggests the following tips for communicating effectively in a remote team:

• Keep your writing clear and concise, eliminating redundant words or phrases and avoiding the passive voice (i.e. The website was designed by Julie = passive; Julie designed the website = active)
• Be mindful of your virtual body language – this could mean considering your posture when on a video conferencing call or even using emojis in written messages to convey your facial expressions
• Designate tools for specific communications, for example, questions and side conversation in a chat app; formal requests or action-related items via email; and status updates through a project management tool.

Next you will look in more detail at the different types of technology that can be used to support virtual team working.